2016 Hamburg

Dear friends and colleagues,

As usual, we’ll meet during the last weekend in November. We’ll arrange a social get-together late on Friday the 25/11, and the conference will take place on Saturday the 26/1  and on Sunday morning the 27/11. Further details will be sent out soon.

Two things will be ‘new’ : 1. The meeting will be extended into the Sunday morning and 2. Apart from some invited lectures, we would be enthusiastic if you could submit abstracts for oral presentations, which was not customary in previous European Gamma Knife meetings.

Frequently we are now facing the situation that radiosurgery is required for tumour recurrences or new tumours, after our patients had previously undergone fractionated radiotherapy. There are very few studies addressing the potentially increased (?) risk after the combined treatment. There are virtually no data concerning the situation that arises when a recurrence after previous radiosurgery has to be retreated.  Furthermore, stereotactic hypo-fractionation will be increasingly important in the near future but current protocols for stereotactic fractionation still appear to be almost randomly chosen. Please review your experience in these topics and share it with us. It would be fantastic if we could gather a number of abstracts and presentations covering these specific areas.

We need to learn from each other with the ultimate goal to find common strategies and to define dose/volume relations in neuro-radiosurgical re-treatments and hypo-fractionations. If you have something else (important) to say, present it.  We have started a European Gamma Knife Society Linkedin group in order to allow a more continuous discussion outside the meeting. You’ll be separately invited to join.

The European Leksell Gamma Knife Society meeting will take place high above the harbour with fantastic views over the city. Apart from the scientific impact, it has always been important to meet each other and to exchange views in a less formal environment. We admit that we have always also enjoyed the social aspects of the European Gamma Knife meetings. Hamburg will be no exception. It will be cold and rainy, the weather will be lousy, but there is an exciting city, the greatest harbour in the world and the Christmas market.

In these times, when neuro-radiosurgery experiences a rapidly increasing general acceptance, we need to maintain a strong representation of the Gamma Knife. A strong representation can only be achieved through active participation.

Please join us and make yourself heard.

Kindest regards,

Bodo Lippitz (host) & Enrico Motti (President ELGKS)